Driving Finance Today for the Climate Resilient Society of Tomorrow

The UNEP Finance Initiative partnered with Climate Finance Advisors to deliver this report to the Global Commission on Adaptation with the objective of focusing greater attention on climate risks and opportunities in private sector investment decisions, as well as accelerating the flow of finance into adaptation activities.

The report outlines the many efforts that have been made to tweak the financial system to better integrate climate change into decision making, but finds that the necessary best practice, regulations, rules and standards are currently weak and ill-defined. It identifies the barriers to scaling up financing for adaptation, which include weak policies and conventions in the financial industry and a low technical capacity for climate risk management amongst others. There is also a range of opportunities to accelerate the investment required to prepare the planet for climate change, though these face additional barriers such as the perceived lack of private benefits and the immaturity of business models.

This paper presents a set of six recommendations, with illustrative case studies, to promote investment in resilience:

• Accelerate and promote climate-relevant financial policies;
• Develop, adopt, and employ climate risk management practices;
• Develop and adopt adaptation metrics and standards;
• Build capacity among all financial actors;
• Highlight and promote investment opportunities; and
• Use public institutions to accelerate adaptation investment.